Weeks before the Wooly Pig Farm Brewery powered up its large-scale solar project for the first time in February, funds designated to support the project were frozen indefinitely.
Kevin Ely and Jael Malenke, the owners and operators of the Wooly Pig brewery in Coshocton, received approval for a Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) grant to install a 100-kilowatt solar array at the brewery-farm in 2024.
The array, created and installed by Paradise Energy Solutions, has a two-way meter to measure the electricity they use when the sun isn’t shining and the excess electricity they generate and sell back to the electric company.
In all, the project cost roughly $292,000, half of which was supposed to be funded by the REAP grant. But in January, a federal funding freeze impacted REAP payouts, and left businesses like the Wooly Pig in financial limbo.
Ely and Malenke were left without a financial safety net and forced to live “hand-to-mouth,” Ely said.
The couple spent weeks communicating with elected officials, and Senator Bernie Moreno sent a staffer to the brewery to sit down with Ely and Malenke. The staffer told the couple that if the grant money could not be unfrozen, Moreno, Senator Jon Husted and Representative Troy Balderson would co-sign a letter to the United States Department of Agriculture requesting a waiver to fund the project, Ely said.
But the need for such a letter did not arise.
On April 29, Ely said a direct deposit for the REAP grant hit his bank account, without notice or communication from the USDA.
“Now we’re kind of able to start planning our future a little bit more,” Ely said. “There’s a lot of things that we were not buying that we just need to catch up on.”
Now with their financial safety net restored, the Wooly Pig is able to go about their business as usual. Life has resumed for the couple of Coshocton County – though the business still faces financial variables as proposed tariffs impact everything from merchandise to the cost of the carbon dioxide they use in bottling beer.
Ely plans to restock on bottles before prices possibly rise. He also plans to process pay raises for employees and do some general projects around the brewery. One such project is the conversion of Wooly Pig’s historic barn into a seating area for customers.
The Wooly Pig’s solar array is still running strong and has cut the couple’s energy bill in half.
On April 22, the brewery unveiled a new beer, appropriately nicknamed “Here Comes the Sun.” The limited brew was made entirely with Ohio-grown barley, hops, the Wooly Pig’s own peaches and “100% WPFB solar power,” according to the brewery’s website. It quickly became the brewery’s top-selling draft beer.
Andrew Theophilus writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.